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Archbishop Gloria GraceMonday, March 23, 2015
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RAISING GODLY CHILDREN (Part 8): CHILDREN OBLIGATION TO PARENTS AND ELDERS

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Continued from Part 7

TO PARENTS

hildren, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth (Ephesians 6: 1&2).

Recently, while reading about some famous revivalists whose presence in a city brought down the presence of God in such cities, I bowed my head and asked the Lord to make me such a revivalist. He answered me that I should bring all my children under obedience to me. Instantly I remembered what the word of God said concerning a Bishop:

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity (2 Timothy 2:2-4).

In one of my earlier articles which I titled: Dealing with Teen rebelliousness http://nigeriaworld.com/feature/publication/gloria-grace/100614.html

I mentioned the model home God expects from every god-fearing family. God does not take it lightly when children are not under the control of their parents. By pointing me to that direction, it meant I was losing the fervency with which I was always drawing my children to the altar of prayers and fellowship together with me. Two are in the university, but their schedules continue to mess up the guideline God laid out for me for their spiritual growth and for the fulfilment of their prophetic callings. Most times, I have given up. So now, I decided to see how else to plan things out with them.

God expects every godly parents to raise godly children that obey them and keep their godly instructions. Disobedience kills children. This is how it works: God is the overall head, the Lord Jesus Christ submitted fully to God and does His will thus manifesting the fullness of God to the world. The Church, which is also represented by families, is subjected or submitted to Christ as her head. Husband is the head of the family, and the wife must submit to his leadership in order to stay under divine protection and provision; children must stay under the authority of parents to receive divine coverage and provision. It is a divine order where everyone comes under the protection and provision of God, and dwells in His union. Jesus prayed to God for us:

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me (John 17: 20-23)

To experience the covering of the glory of God, His union with our families, His favor upon our households and blessings, everyone in the family must come under divine alignment. It has to be His family.

Thus the submission of the wife unto her husband, and the submission of the children unto their parents are all submission unto God. The husband too must be submitted to Christ as his head and love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. We can now see that if everyone takes his and her position in the family, there is no room for strife, confusion and very evil work. The family will be prosperous, and the Lord will bless the works of very one's hands, amen.

Do not force, I repeat, do not force obedience submission on anyone. Everything is done in love. It is not automatic, it is something that is patiently worked out through prayers, forgiveness and fear of God. The house of God, your family, is called: The House of Prayers for all nations. It's the house of deliverance, of glory, of provision, where people will come and meet God. Children's disobedience hinders the presence and the glory of God in families. Their waywardness pollutes the foundation of the home and the glory of God departs. Thus we labor and labor in prayers and see little or no result because the family is not in order. Children are not under the control of parents. God has to set things in order before things will work properly in the home.

The Reward the Lord promised children for obeying and honoring their parents is: LONG LIFE AND PROSPERITY. The opposite is the case. Everyone, including the children is accountable to God, not just to the parents. Parents are only keepers who will receive reward from God. We are raising them for God, not for ourselves. Pharaoh's daughter said to Moses' mother to raise this child and I will give you the reward. As one of the rewards, God will make them fruitful and cause us to rejoice as we see the fruits of our labors manifesting in their lives. The love you will show to your children and to God is to raise them in the way they should go: the way God mapped out to raise them. They belong to Him. Teach them obedience to God and to you- parents-for their good, and for the fulfilment of divine purposes for their lives.

God also instructed the children to obey parental instructions. I will not talk much on this because I have written much about it in my book: How Do We Invest in Our Children? Remember, it was because Queen Esther followed the instructions of Mordecai that the whole Jewish nation in Shushan were saved from massacre.

TO ELDERS

The word of God instructs children never to be rude to elders. Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, the older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters, in all purity (1 Timothy 5: 1-2). Many young people have risen and said that God asked them to go and warn this man of God, that man of God. It goes on the news, CDs and so forth. Elderly people could do wrong things, but the word of God asked the children to entreat them as fathers, mothers…with all purity. Children these days don't have all the facts of life. Most of them do not know their right from their left. Technologies, Televisions became their mentors. "Stars" or celebrities became their role models and yet all these demon-controlled centers teach them opposite the word of God. They remote-control their behaviors, teach them rebelliousness and disobedience asking them to "follow your heart", which is satanic worship rules. One could hear some of them say: "nobody tells me what I do", and so, they live under the wrath of God, rather than in His favor and protection (check out my series on: Keep children off Television). God is too holy to accommodate sin whether from children or adults, and He judges all sins, unless one comes under the cover of the Blood of Jesus Christ.

It is written: Stand up in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD (Leviticus 19: 32).

Those days back home, we were raised with much respect to the elderly people. We add respect to their names, and greet them whenever we meet them. We look at elders with shame-facedness, not directly into their eyes. Now, things have so much changed. Here in the US, our way of raising children looks ancient to the children. They are not taught the need to respect the elders, thus honoring God. They don't see the difference between themselves and the elders. Most children will return from school and walk pass their parents as though they never saw anyone. Highest greeting is: "Hi, mom, dad". The thing is: they don't know. We however, ought to teach them. God expects us to let them understand His order of life, honoring parents, elders. Let's repeat the above scripture: Stand up in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the LORD

Another Bible version says: Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the LORD (KJV).

The word of God here says that honoring the elderly people shows that the children fear God. God demands that we teach our children to show respect to elderly people.

During Job's affliction, his three friends came to console him. One of them: Elihu was the youngest. In respect to the elderly ones, he kept quiet until those elderly ones talked. This probably lasted for quite some time. According to him: "... I am young in years, you are very old, therefore I was afraid and did not declare my opinion to you" (Job 32:6-7). He did this even when he recognized that "… there is a spirit in man, and the breadth of the almighty gives him understanding. Great men are not always wise, nor the aged always understand justice" (Job 32:8, 9).

One of the sins of the people of Israel that caused the anger of God to fall upon them was because: the faces of the elders were not honored (Lamentations 5:12).

For more on this topic, get my book: How Do we Invest In our children? In my book, I also discussed series of valuable lessons to help our children live in favor with God and man, to please Him and fulfil God's plan for their lives. When we train our children well, we raise the godly foundation of the next generation, which will enjoy the favor and blessings of God.

Paperbacks are available in Lagos, and will also be available in Amazon marketplace.

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Follow the link for my books including the above title.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=archbishop+gloria+grace

Continued from Part 7

© Archbishop Gloria Grace

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